Political Cartoons

Examples of editorial cartoons that appeared in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.







The Capitola Theater was closing after many years. The owner is shown here viewing "the last picture show". As of the present date (July 2007) the place is still an empty-shell. This drawing was published in 1996. Many an evening my two brothers and I would hike down the rail road tracks from Aptos Village to Capitola to see an MGM musical in the 1950's!


A local Santa Cruz Highway project that has been dragging on for years.

The subject matter of these cartoons is still current even though they were created a decade ago!

Aptos, California Girls

Here is a small sampling of the women who used to walk through the door at Kearney Studios! This is why I wanted to be a photographer!














Examples of "country style" images ...shot with medium format camera and long lens.

Cabrillo College Comic Strip

This was part of a continuing comic strip that appeared in the college newspaper. circa:1973


As you might be able to tell...this story was autobiographical.

Kearney Goes to the Dogs!

A Few Words About STUBBY
Stubby...he was the family dog all through my Watsonville High School days. He was a pure-breed English Cocker Spaniel. He liked to eat the fruit from our pippin and bellflower apple trees. He would keep my feet warm at night as I slept outside our cabin under the stars. I could hear the Barn Owls screeching and the crickets chirping. Stubby made me feel safe from the night. note: I made my special Donald Duck sound as I snapped this photo with my Kodak Brownie camera.

Here I am with my pal Stubby. We lived in Aptos, CA... my two brothers my dad and I. We called a small cabin home. It was on an acre of land with redwood trees and several dozen apple trees. My dad had a plant nursery there...Fuchsias and African violets. "Pop" had 100 varieties of Fuchsias! Us kids were good at transplanting and pruning! The violets had to be kept warm and were housed in a building that is still there to this day. This was near Redwood Village on Soquel Drive. We would take a school bus to Watsonville High School every day.Kearney and Stubby a few years later.

Stubby was quite the ocean swimmer! He could go through those waves and keep up with the best of us! After all he did have web-feet! He loved to roll in the warm sand to dry off after a swim. At home all you had to say was "you wan'na go to the beach"? He would run for the car and you couldn't get him out of there till we got to the beach.

Stubby gets dressed up! You can see part of the cabin in the background.

This was one of my nephews dogs. It shows the flow of action using a panning technique!

A Haight-Ashbury hippie dog...circa:1969 San Francisco, CA.

Cartoon drawing of a hopeful hitch-hiker, 1969 San Francisco.

Pooch glamour shot. I often had requests to do photos of pets at my Aptos Studio.

Kearney Cats

The Cat Stays in the Picture!
Cats seemed to be turning up all the time whenever I happened to have a camera! Maybe in a former life they were models? Golden eyed beauty shot with medium format camera and long lens and setting sun.

"I'm ready for my closeup Mr. Kearney" You can't tell a cat to do this. He/she just jumped up into the chair in my Aptos Studio one fine day and it was "lights, camera, action"!

"Hi There! I saw the door open and thought I would just drop in"! Look at that "cat-walk"! I had never seen this cat before!

"Hey! I want to be a model too"! I did'nt plan this at all...the cat just showed up! I was shooting some portfolio work for the wonderful model.

A powerful grey cat that lived at the Victorian Bay View Hotel in Aptos Village, CA. He would enter rooms through the window. In this case it was my room.

Could this be a scene out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie? Maybe Psycho? note: the black cat. This building has since been remodeled and is a home for senior citizens. click on photo for details.

"A good place to see what's going on" said the fence cat! I like all the sun-baked wood.

Here we have a "window cat". In my walks around the sea-side town of Santa Cruz, CA... I would notice I was being observed!

A cartoon cat doodle. I noticed how cats sometimes tuck in their front paws.

Kearney Creations

Various Examples of Ken Kearney's work
I found a new job at Singer/Friden in the early 1970's.

Kearney with magazine and original cover art painting. I had a great job for a while working at Friden, a place in San Leandro, CA. I did illustrations for their corporate magazines, learned photography even worked in their TV studio as a camera-man.

Closeup of painting for cover, May 1970. I used a palate knife and acrylics.

Kearney and co-worker Fran at the controls of the large TV cameras used at Friden. circa:1970

Graphic arts area at Friden.

Paul Moeller was one of the best bosses I ever had. We got along great and he taught me the basics of photography, on the job.

One Christmas season while living in San Francisco, I worked on cartoons at a Palo Alto Mall for charity. It was a big hit! Soon I was drawing cartoons of people's pets! Money was being raised for various causes...even the Veterans' Hospital!


One of many covers for Cabrillo College Newspaper. I got away from the big city, was divorced and went to College on the GI Bill. It was great fun! I created cartoons and photos for the "Cabrillo Log".

Perfect shot of seagull about to take flight from rock in Pleasure Point, CA. 135mm lens

Solarized print of the same seagull photo created in my Aptos Studio darkroom.

Watsonville Pajaronian newspaper story.

"The Great Hunter" looking for his next thrilling subject. Mixed media

"Uke You and the Moon" My favorite musical instrument the ukulele rendered here with oil pastels.

Kearney in elf costume,1973. My brother and I worked the Santa Claus window for Ford's Department Store in Watsonville,CA for many years. My brother was the "Jolly Man" himself!
Here's my older brother Phil portraying Santa.

Photography near La Selva Beach,CA. Nadine was running with her mare and colt.